An Israeli soldier tries to get an ISM international volunteer out of harm's way as she tries to interfere with anti-terror operations.

Last summer, Frontpagmag.com exposed the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) as a front group that works closely with the PLO and Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a Marxist terrorist group. The ISM exploits international volunteers as cannon fodder. Posing as "peace activists," these volunteers aid terrorists by interfering with the anti-terror operations of the Israeli army. In doing so, they often transform themselves into "victims." A case in point: the famous young anarchist student named Rachel Corrie, whom ISM recruited at Evergreen College in Washington State. Corrie was killed when she sat in front of an Israeli army bulldozer to block it from demolishing a weapons smuggling tunnel hidden behind a bush. A young British man named Tom Hurndall also returned to the UK in a coma after his turn waging war against the State of Israel. ISM co-founder George Rishmawi, a Canadian-Palestinian communist, gave the rationale for why the ISM recruits internationals: "When Palestinians get shot by Israeli soldiers, no one is interested anymore. But if some of these foreign volunteers get shot or even killed, then the international media will sit up and take notice."

Rishmawi now operates out of Pasadena, California -- at least, when he isn’t in the West Bank or Gaza. As a lifelong communist, allied with the PLO’s PFLP/communist-wing, Rishmawi developed a consortium of anarchists and radicals to fight for the Palestinian cause. Rachel Corrie fit this profile perfectly. The ISM is still benefiting from Corrie’s death, touring the United States with Corrie’s mother, who describes her daughter as an angel and human rights activist despite her role in aiding the would-be murderers of innocent Jews. In her letters home, Corrie called terrorist murderers "martyrs" and praised their jihadist ways. One of her heroes' missile attacks intentionally targeted a children’s preschool where a four-year-old baby was killed, a child born through artificial insemination after his parents spent fifteen years trying to conceive. Other feats of ISM human rights activities have included trying to squat inside houses used as bomb making factories to prevent their demolition by Israeli authorities. Paul LaRudee, the head of Norcal ISM in the San Francisco Bay Area, has boasted of sleeping in a suicide bomber’s bed.

These individuals call themselves "peace activists." But at their Ohio State Palestine Solidarity conference two years ago, Adam Shapiro, another co-founder, admitted that ISM members are run by the PLO -- with PLO plainclothes handlers at every event in the West Bank and Gaza. In their training sessions, they are instructed never to interfere with children throwing stones at Israelis or with the terrorists’ activities. Such pro-jihadist incidents, resulting in the needless deaths of young Western college students, led to the formation of the organization Stop the ISM (www.stoptheISM), created to combat their pro-terrorist activism.

Stop the ISM has spent most of the last year infiltrating the ISM. Volunteers have actually joined ISM groups from all over the U.S. to report their planned actions against the Israeli border police. The ISM used to take any warm body that walked in the door to go to "Palestine." Now, however, it requires registration and references from at least two bona fide radical activists to attend this summer’s training sessions. Some of Stop the ISM’s volunteers were screened out, but some made it in only to find out, through an intercepted email, that the training sessions slated for June 10-12 in the U.S. were canceled because they were being infiltrated.

Another intercepted internal email by Rann Bar-On, the ISM leader at Duke University, recently bemoaned the fact that the ISM hasn’t received enough internationals to carry out their activities of interfering with Israel’s security fence and to shield PLO terrorists. (Rann, an Israeli national from a South African family, once refused to condemn suicide bombings against his fellow Israelis.) Thus, writes Bar-On, the ISM must rely on Israeli anarchists:

ISM has decided to scale back our presence in the South Hebron Hills villageof Qawawis to weekends only starting next week, as we do not have enoughinternationals in Palestine at the moment. However, people are needed thereall the time, especially now that the only house in the village has beenthreatened with demolition. Therefore we are requesting that any Israelis whocan spend one or two nights (or more) down there do. It's a lovely littlevillage, with very little to do most of the time. It's great for a bit of abreak. The people are lovely, you get fed three times a day and the area isbeautiful.

Some background: the villagers of Qawawis were forced to move out to Carmelfollowing settler attacks. A few months ago, under ISM protection, some ofthem moved back to Qawawis. Since then, settler attacks have increased, butrecently had disappeared _while activists are around_. When there are noactivists (with cameras) there, the settlers do what they want.

The fact that Bar-On, who organized the ISM's Hate-the-Jews fest at Duke University last year, can no longer get willing foot soldiers is telling. Stop the ISM has had remarkable success in shutting down the ISM's reason to exist.

On June 14, three ISM "volunteers" were arrested by the Israeli authorities after Stop the ISM advised the police where they were living in Jerusalem in violation of their visas; two were deported. More surprises await ISM volunteers in Israel. Of course, the ISM internal announcement spiced things up claiming the internationals were taken to "a place notorious for torture and the bloody screams that emanate from its basement," where the next day these two victims were seen eating their lunch unsupervised on the grass in front of the torturous hellhole. The ISM and Rishmawi have moved in a different angle, now trying to offer college credit and "scholarships" to ISM volunteers who commit for at least three weeks of ISM "activism" this summer.

Stop the ISM even managed to run the pro-terrorists off the information superhighway, at least temporarily. The ISM's website was down completely for a week. The webmaster claims this was to "reorganize" the site. The ISM website previously listed pages of instructions on how to violate Israeli law and interfere with soldiers in anti-terrorist operations.One wonders if the reorganization occurred because the group is removing incriminating sections now that it is being exposed.

The ISM's attempts at funding pro-jihad activity and offering school credit for it should be met head-on by concerned Americans who want to see a real peace in the Middle East. Anyone with an interest in the state of American academia should contact all college-accrediting organizations in the country and demand Rishmawi’s program not be given accreditation. At the same time, the FBI should be investigating where money is now coming from to finance ISM genocide-enablers traveling to the Middle East, whose only work is to perpetuate terrorism and provide cover to PLO members killing Jews (whether Israeli or American).

If you’d like to volunteer with Stop the ISM, feel free to contact them at stoptheISM@att.net. You don’t have to go to the Middle East and become cannon fodder. With any luck, you will prevent others from doing the same thing -- and maybe even help stymie terrorism.

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